‘It was supposed to be a kid’s movie’: George Lucas has come out to defend his Star Wars prequels

George Lucas has defended his Star Wars prequels.

The 80-year-old director insisted that his movies were never meant to appeal to grown ups and he doesn’t understand the hate directed at them.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, he said at the Cannes Film Festival: “It was supposed to be a kid’s movie for 12-year-olds that were going through puberty, who don’t know what they’re doing, and are asking all the big questions: ‘What should I be worried about? What’s important in life?’ And Star Wars has all those things in there. They’re buried in there but you definitely get it, especially if you’re young.”

He claimed the negativity came from “critics and fans who had been 10 years old when they saw the first one” and he was particularly upset by the ridicule of Jar Jar Binks, which reminded him of the original response to C-3PO.

He said: “Everybody said the same thing about 3-PO, that he was irritating and we should get rid of him. When I did the third one it was the Ewoks: ‘Those are little teddy bears. This is a kid’s movie, we don’t want to see a kids’ movie. I said: ‘It is a kids’ movie. It’s always been a kids’ movie.'”

And, he also shared his thoughts on the sequels, which were made after he sold Lucasfilm to Disney in 2012.

He said: “I was the one who really knew what Star Wars was … who actually knew this world, because there’s a lot to it. The Force, for example, nobody understood the Force. When they started other ones after I sold the company, a lot of the ideas that were in [the original] sort of got lost. But that’s the way it is. You give it up, you give it up.”